In his 39 years at the Chicago Auto Show, Ray Galassi has seen changes aplenty.
But one constant remains.
“To me, the auto show is always exciting–so many lights, so many people, so many new cars. It’s like walking into a different world–with all the glitter. It’s like show time,” says Galassi, 52, an award-winning auto salesman whose love of the car business has spanned four decades.
He’s sitting in his memento-filled office at Galassi Motor Sales Inc., an authorized Jeep dealership at 7733 S. Western Ave., that his dad, Emil, founded in 1952.
Galassi was 12 when he started working for free in the annual car show’s Jeep exhibit, hopping a bus after school for the afternoon/evening shift.
Since 1984, he has managed the show’s sales staff for Jeep.
Galassi starts planning for the 10-day extravaganza about three months out. That’s when the adrenaline starts to flow. He orders the shirts and sweaters, badgers the dealers in the Chicagoland Jeep Dealers Association to send him their best salespeople and sets up meetings to pump up the personnel. Salespeople are expected to pass out business cards and keep a 3-by-5 card on each of their prospects.
The Chicago Auto Show is “a selling show,” says Galassi. “It’s not a show where people just come to look. They are actually interested in buying,” he says, comparing it to the Detroit Auto Show, where factory-hired product specialists man the exhibits.
In Chicago, “flesh-and-blood car salesmen” are on hand.
State law prohibits them from finalizing a sale at the auto show, but “a week to 10 days later prospects start showing up at the dealerships,” says Galassi.
February sales tend to be up dramatically–as much as 50 percent from previous months– whereas during the show, which draws more than a million people, dealerships are “like the Sahara desert,” he says.
Before the auto show opens, DaimlerChrysler personnel set up the Jeep displays and bring in the cars. Galassi tours McCormick Place before opening day to get a feel for the floor plan and set up his command post.
“Every year about mid-week, I swear I will never do it again,” he says, explaining his auto-show workday extends from 7:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. for each of the 10 days of the event.
“But by Friday, all of a sudden my enthusiasm comes back,” though he misses the glamor that once dominated the show, particularly the big, splashy preview gala. Today’s black-tie charity evening doesn’t begin to compare to the old days, says Galassi.
“Tickets for (the former) event were very tough to get,” he recalls. “It was the biggest night in Chicago–like a Bulls championship game.
“There were two or three orchestras, name acts, like the Mills Brothers, beautiful women in full-length gowns. It was like a Broadway show,” says Galassi. In those days, the car show “had a carnival type atmosphere” with glamorous models, small restaurants and side-show promoters hawking all kinds of wares.
That was before the original McCormick Place burned down in 1967, when the show was moved to the cramped Chicago Amphitheatre. It returned to the rebuilt McCormick place in 1971 and moved into the McCormick Place South in 1997.
Galassi believes auto-show visitors have brought about the biggest change. No longer do eager customers come in for their first peek at the new cars. Today’s customers are loaded with knowledge, says Galassi.
“Most already know what they want,” having pored over information on the Internet about styles, equipment options, colors and cost comparisons. They know how much dealers pay for the car, and how much they expect to make in profit.
“Nine out of 10 customers are already well informed,” he says. “They are there to compare the Jeep to the Lexus to the Chevy Blazer.”
So, “salespeople have to be real professionals today,” says Galassi.
Even the models have to be knowledgeable, he says, whereas in the 1960s and 1970s, they were nothing but “gorgeous window dressing.”
Women shoppers dominate the show today, he says, and make up 50 percent of carbuyers. Women in the 1960s and 70s knew little about cars.
“Today’s women shoppers are highly informed and have tremendously big buying power. In fact, they tend to be more informed than the men,” says Galassi, who, when he’s selling to a couple, directs his pitch to the wife “because 99 percent of the time, the husband turns to her and says, `What do you think?’ In fact, that’s what I do with my own wife.”
Saleswomen are also relatively new at the show. The first in the Jeep exhibit signed on seven years ago. Of the 30 Jeep salespeople, three to five are women, says Galassi, who says more women should go into car sales.
“What’s interesting is that most men will go to the woman salesperson to ask her about a car rather than the salesman standing next to her.”
High-tech exhibits have changed the face of the show. At interactive kiosks in the Jeep exhibit, shoppers can create their own car–with all the features and colors they want, including the manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP).
Galassi advises serious carbuyers to visit the show Monday through Thursday, preferably early in the day when salespeople have time to answer questions. Weekends are chaos, particularly the closing weekend, he says.
He thrives on watching the people who visit the show and its rhythm. “That’s what makes the show such fun. People tend to act a little differently at the car show. They’re having more fun, like going to a movie theater. They get away from their troubles. It’s a cheap date.”
“On Valentine’s Day, we always see plenty of teenagers hand-in-hand,” whereas Lincoln’s birthday unleashes a flood of field-tripping kids. On Wednesdays come “the doctor and lawyer types–the pipe-smoking, tire kickers. You can tell them the minute they come in. They’re dressed in their three-piece suits as if they’re on the way to the hospital or going to court,” he says.
“Sundays are always bizarre. That’s when you see the real characters, the ones with the earrings in places where no one would have imagined anyone would ever place an earring. They’re dressed in everything imaginable,” he says.
Galassi takes pride in the fact he won scores of Mystery Shopper awards in his days as one of the floor salesmen at the car show. In the early days, representatives of the Chicago Auto Trade Association, the show’s sponsor, roamed the floor quizzing sales people about their product.
“If the salesman knew everything there was to know about his cars, the Mystery Shopper reached in his pocket and pulled out an envelope with $25 in it.”
Galassi won 18 Mystery Shopper awards one year when he was working two shifts each day of the then nine-day show. He suspects he may hold the prize, though no records have been kept. Today, the CATA hands out Award for Customer Excellence awards to top-notch salespeople.
“To work at the auto show is like a mini vacation for me,” says Galassi, who started rolling around on the creeper in the repair shop behind his father’s showroom at age 6. “My dad claims I must have gotten plenty of grease and oil in my blood early,” he says.
Ray and his brother, Emil Jr., run the dealership though their father, at 79, still comes in to turn a wrench or help out on the sales floor from time to time.
So what does Ray Galassi do on the Monday morning after the auto show closes, having worked 15 1/2-hour shifts for 10 days? He’s at his dealership desk by 8 a.m. “My wife claims I work too hard,” he says.
